Friday, January 02, 2009

Exhuming old skeletons (and flames)

I think I may have missed something big last year.

When I was in second grade, in the 1987-88 school year, Woodvale Elementary School in Lafayette, Louisiana turned 20 years old. They made a big deal of this milestone, as did we (I pictured hippies riding to school in cars with giant fins...goo goo goo joob). As part of the 20th-anniversary celebration, each student wrote down who they were in 1988 and what they were going to have done by the Magical Mystery Year of 2008.

One girl in the class, Shaana Perkins, had a huge crush on me. She passed me love notes and pictures of us kissing, and told everyone we were boyfriend-girlfriend. On her future forecast, she wrote, "My husband is Ian McGibboney." When she read it aloud to the class, everyone went, "Oooooo!" like an early episode of "Full House." Shaana was the cutest girl in the class, sort of a cross between Uma Thurman and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

As for my paper, I don't really remember what I wrote, but it was along the lines of this:

"My name is Ian McGibboney. In 2008 I will be 28 years old[probably needed some help with that calculation]. I will be a famous auto mechanic, gymnast, golfer, professional tee-ball player and Transformer. I will also own a toy company. My wife is not Shaana Perkins."

We gathered these capsules of clairvoyance and assembled as a school to place them in a time capsule. I was chosen, God knows how, to represent my class. As a VHS camcorder rolled, I marched up to the box and placed our manuscripts within. A bunch of stuff I don't remember also happened; all I recall is watching the tape later and consequently vowing to invent digital video.

We were told that this time capsule would be extracted in 2008, and we'd all be invited back to watch and reminisce and (presumably) be disappointed that we wound up being middle managers instead of fairy princess astronauts. I intermittently thought about this over the years, hoping I'd have another chance to show off my slightly improved kickball skills. But, as far I know, 2008 came and went without fanfare. Did anyone else hear about this? Maybe I'm the only one who remembers. Or maybe the whole thing was an elaborate diversion to keep me from yet another heated game of Red Rover. They knew what carnage resulted when Ian came over.

Assuming it didn't transpire, I guess I'll have to go back to Lafayette and start digging. If for no other reason than to revise my paper, so I can have it predict "blogger," and just blow everyone's fricking minds once they finally pull it up.